Why would someone throw away a perfectly good rechargeable battery? Besides the fact that all batteries should be recycled, throwing away something that could be reused is foolish. If your wife has such disregard for money, please ask her to donate it to your videogame collection! lol, women
. Anyways, here are some quick fun facts: lithium ion batteries degrade at a given rate, regardless of use(e.g. hardly using your lion batteries will not grant them longevity.) Also, waiting for your lion batteries to completely discharge before recharging them is dangerous: lion batteries cannot be recharged if they become completely depleted; this is why all lion batteries generally come with some sort of monitoring chip. One more thing!: if the lion batteries in your laptop "battery" die off, you can easily solder in some new ones for a fraction of the cost that your computer company will charge you for a new battery.
=D